Thursday, May 10, 2007

So, as many of you who know me well, you also know that this is about the time of year that my family takes its first trip down to the Outer Banks for a week. A week long vacation could not come at a better time as I am ready for the peace and quiet and ready to relax. I know MIOL is also looking forward to being able to close her eyes and sleep on the beach.

I'm going to give the no work email for the entire week a try again this trip and see what awaits me upon my return, but I do know that when I did that last fall, it made a huge difference in my ability to fully enjoy the time off. But as most of you know, the amount of email you have after being gone for a week is beyond ridiculous.

Which makes you wonder why we opt to communicate so much over email. It's one thing if you use it as a form of communicating with friends overseas or friends that are hard to get a hold of on the phone. But work? It seems that more and more people are becoming either passive aggressive or non-confrontational, and would rather send a flaming email or send a series of email questions, rather than get up and walk 20 feet to talk to the person. This has got to be one of my greatest pet peeves as I am very much a "walk and talk" kind of person. I enjoy getting up from my desk and walking around, talking to the people I need to talk to get the job done.

As BlackBerrys become more and more prevalent over the next few years, will we become an email society?

What matters is that I will not be participating in that society next week.